Initiated by Beijing Foreign Studies University, China MOOCs for Foreign Studies (hereafter referred to as CMFS) was founded on December 23, 2017 in Beijing, China. It is a nationwide nonprofit organization formed by foreign studies universities and colleges endeavoring to promote MOOCs of foreign languages and cultures in China. At present, CMFS has 183 member universities and colleges.
The mission of CMFS is to drive the development of foreign language education in China by promoting the sharing of high-quality educational resources, and advanced teaching theories and methods. The CMFS is also committed to promoting the international exchange and sharing in language education for the benefit of all foreign language learners, and supporting cooperation and communication among countries along the Belt and Road.
As the first MOOCs alliance for foreign studies in China, CMFS brings together the high-quality courses of foreign studies as well as excellent teachers from the member universities and colleges, and serves learners throughout the world with high-quality language education. It also works hard to formulate the development plan on MOOCs for foreign studies and set the curriculum standards, and to improve the systems of MOOC certification, quality evaluation and testing in China. In addition, CMFS promotes the mutual recognition of credits and degrees among member universities. Meanwhile, it carries out research on the habits of MOOC users (especially MOOCs for foreign studies), collects and analyzes data, and forwards proposals on the development of the industry.
In addition, CMFS endeavors to build a platform for information sharing, communication and training among its members, and to strengthen international academic exchange by expanding international language learning programs, and attracting experts, scholars and young students all over the world to work together for the development of MOOCs.
CMFS’s membership includes colleges and universities, research institutions as well as online education providers. Attending the founding ceremony were more than 200 guests, including the representatives of China Association of Higher Education, the academic leaders from the Research Center of Distance Education, Computer-Assisted Language Learning Committee and other research institutions, and including Presidents and Deans of 97 foreign studies universities and colleges. They all have high praise and great expectations of CMFS, and will spare no effort in promoting the development of CMFS.
The members of CMFS’ first standing committee are from 15 top universities of international studies in China such as Beijing Foreign Studies University, Shanghai International Studies University, China Foreign Affairs University, and first-class comprehensive universities like Tsinghua University, Peking University, Nanjing University, and Fudan University. With their own merits in the discipline, they will offer a wide range of courses in language, culture, politics, economics and trade, diplomacy and cultural studies. Furthermore, many of them are experienced in and have made great contribution to MOOCs . Some members’ courses have been recognized by the Ministry of Education in China as “National High Quality Online Open Courses”. Also, researchers and experts in the discipline provide CMFS with strong support in building a first-class international academic exchange platform for foreign language courses.
UMOOCs (moocs.unipus.cn) is the official website of the CMFS’ open courses. As an online course platform for universities and colleges, it offers high-quality foreign studies courses online from universities both at home and abroad, and provides course certificates from these universities. The platform enables CMFS members to share their courses and promote the innovative language teaching methodologies and models in China. On UMOOCs, universities can build their own courses, share courses with other universities, and achieve credit recognition.